


Nothing Else In The World

by babbling_bug



Series: Red Alert Character Pieces [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babbling_bug/pseuds/babbling_bug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day in the life, more or less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Else In The World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eyemeohmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemeohmy/gifts).



The ping of the morning news report broke him away from his twenty-third rehash of his current security system (a fire had broken out at the Iacon Science Academy, 3 confirmed deactivated, a further 4 still missing). It still had, what seemed to be (at least to him), gaping holes that anyone with optics and sufficient determination could spot without too much difficulty.  
  
The system had been adequate for a while now. But the times were changing and Red Alert was not one to leave himself exposed so foolishly. He was hardly an easy target.  
  
Regardless, he had spent the entire off-cycle trying to improve its design, to no avail. There was something fundamentally wrong with it— he just didn’t know what it was yet. Wearily accepting defeat for the moment, Red Alert checked and rechecked his chronometer.  
  
Recharge had forsaken him, yet again. Not that it really mattered— he was never without work, whether personal or professional. A few extra joors without a defrag cycle was a perfectly acceptable compromise.  
  
He would have to forward the codes for Senator Ratbat’s new database security protocols today. Damn mech wouldn’t accept an easy data-transfer packet though (as if he doubted Red Alert’s personal firewalls when he was already paying for his services. How idiotic).  
  
The good Senator was sending a courier.  
  
Of all things.  
  
 _Completely ridiculous_ , Red Alert thought as he stood, flexing his stiff joints as he headed to his rudimentary fuelling station. Inconvenient to stop his work now, but even he got bored of staring at the same five walls all cycle long.  
  
The Senator’s commission was far from his best work- that had been for the esteemed Assembly’s art collection in Praxus- but even so, you got what you paid for.  
  
Red Alert almost wanted to laugh as he finished off his cube of Energon, but it chaffed at him that any deficiencies in the commission would reflect badly on him, regardless of the Senator’s own specifications.  
  
Good or bad, he didn’t need a reputation, but it was nice to know that your designation was only associated with good work.  
  
Exiting the fuelling station, Red Alert approached the retro-fitted console by his front door. It was his own design, as with most of the things he owned, and if he was going to receive a visitor, he would need to program the exception into the door locks.  
  
So much trouble, for so sub-standard a product. The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.  
  
Approving the changes with one final jab of his extended digit, Red Alert huffed silently all the way back to his office.  
  
—  
  
Red Alert checked and re-checked the list of exceptions programmed into his door locks. The blasted courier had come and gone, and he had already reversed the changes he had been forced to make in order to oblige Senator Ratbat’s whims. This would be his sixth attempt to confirm that his locks were operating as they were much earlier in the cycle.  
  
It was hard to reassure himself when the sound of unfamiliar footsteps ascending the stairs, moving down the hall towards his apartment, still rang about his processors. His neighbours were much more tolerable, quiet. What, exactly, had the delivery mech been thinking? Strolling up and down the hall like he lived there.  
  
Grinding his denta, he jerked his hands away from the console before he started re-entering his authorization code. Twitching back a step, he stared at the security panel for an astrosecond before rushing back to his office.  
  
The humming of active ROMs and monitors was comforting as he looked upon his equipment, letting his carefully constructed symphony wash over him as he locked his office door behind him and settled in front of a monitor with an empty command window. He had been in the middle of something important.  
  
In between waiting for the Senator’s courier and trying to distract himself with the latest news reports (a riot had broken out in Crystal City- religious extremists protesting the display of an unnamed ‘sanctified object’ in a new museum exhibition; Governor Straxus was making waves again with his refusal to cooperate with the Senate on any level; scientists in Altihex had again raised concerns over Kalis’ fusion reactor, as usual, they were summarily ignored) he had discovered a solution to the problems he had encountered when trying to update his personal security system. It was a very simple solution, in truth.  
  
All he had to do was establish a hard-line connection with his security mainframe, allowing him unlimited, fine-tuned control over his security net.  
  
The problem was that it would prove an impossible feat for Red Alert to achieve. He simply was not built for that kind of processing power. It would cause a catastrophic overload of circuits, if he were to try for even an astrosecond- his personal computers had been modified in such a way that he was sure they could rival the ones at the Science Academy of Iacon.  
  
This would not be the first time he had cursed the unreliability of commercial processor upgrades. If only he had been built with higher quality parts… and had a surgeon he trusted.  
  
An unbecoming sound issued from his vocoder before he could stop it. If he had the capacity to comprehend emotional protocol coding, then they would be the first to go. His faceplates too. Such a waste to install emotional responses, facial patterns, mechanometers of code squandered in an effort to give him the ability to smile.  
  
Red Alert had no wish to do any such thing.  
  
He would much rather do away with it all. Take away his capacity to show anger upon thin, energy inefficient strips of living alloy, make room for more equations, more processing power. A face-mask would be much more appropriate without being vulgar, a visor too would provide a larger HUD, more space to monitor several systems at once. The Senator’s courier had had both.  
  
Red Alert could barely contain his jealousy.  
  
Jealousy. Something else to eliminate. What need did he have for it, when he knew he was the best at what he does?  
  
He looked back to the blinking cursor on the nearest monitor.  
  
It would be suicide to simply attempt to connect to his security mainframe- he’d designed them too well, made it too powerful.  
  
But…  
  
But, certain safety measures could be applied.  
  
—  
  
For precisely 3.876 kliks Red Alert can see every line of code he has ever written into his security system, into his apartment’s climate control settings, the heating specs in the Energon dispenser at his fuelling station, complete vorns of history on his door locks.  
  
It takes him only 2.0001 kliks to isolate the flaws in his current system and improve them even further. Another 0.528 of a klik, and he realizes that the entire endeavor has been a mistake.  
  
But then there is the acrid scent of burning silicon and nothing but starbursts in his optics as the data becomes corrupted. 


End file.
